balances are based on IMF staff estimates of potential GDP and revenue and expenditure ... for the United Kingdom they refer to end of March. Estimates of the output gap and of the structural ... and Debt1 (Percent of GDP) 1981–91 Major industrial countries Actual balance Output gap

estimates, instrumenting the output gap with all other explanatory variables, one lag ... debt. As fiscal policy affects the state of the economy, least-squares estimates ... that the estimated coefficient is positive and significant only in bad times. In good times

A simple approach to calculate the output elasticity of tax revenues is to use ... on the first lead and lags 0 to 4 of changes in real output. This estimate yields ... countries (around 2).7 The negative gap in revenue when actual GDP was below potential

in earlier years, real GDP rose 7.2 percent, driven by booming diamondproduction ... in recent years reflect buoyant SACU revenue (mostly due to rapidly rising import duty and excise revenues collected by South Africa) and the transition from the old to a new revenue-sharing formula agreed in 2002 (IMF Country Report 05/437). At the time ... sectors. Reflecting high transfers from SACU and exports of textiles and diamonds, the current account balance registered a substantial surplus and gross international reserves